So I get a phone call from my wife this afternoon telling me her crd will not start and the instrument cluster flashes when she gets inside the vehicle. So I tell her to call her sister and get a ride home. I would return to the vehicle later tonight to find the battery flat dead. I go to the autoparts store and pick up a new 34 series battery. Install the new battery in the jeep and now the jeep is charging the new battery at like 17 volts (measured with a DVOM). Any ideas???

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2006 Jeep Liberty CRD, GDE ECO tune, magnaflow muffler (wife's vehicle)
2007 Dodge Ram 1500 Hemi 4x4, Diablo tuned, Air Raid intake, Edelbrock headers, cherry bomb vortex dumped under bed (my truck)
1997 Jeep Cherokee 4.0 4x4 (sold)

This happened to me once. I washed the engine compartment down right before a long trip and the ECM connection must have gotten wet because when I started down the road all the gauges started flashing. I pulled over about a mile down the road and it was putting out like 21 volts. I turned around but by the time I got home the battery was boiling. I took my pickup truck on the trip and when I got home on Monday, everything worked fine. Since then I've been very careful to keep water away from the ECM.

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Manure green 2005 CRD sport4x4, GDE Hot tune, Cat Gut, OE skids, Draw tight hitch, Duramax lift pump, 160K on multiple varieties of fuel, XM radio, Escort live with Redline, fog light mod, GPS, Icom IC7000 all band radio call sign KC9QPF, Grabber AT2s on Soft 8s, FIA grill blanket.

The early KJs up to 2005 do not have a regulator in the alternator...the ECM adjusts the field current in the alternator and measures the battery voltage to Keep the charge voltage correct.

In 2006, I think, they changed to having a regulator inside the alternator and the ECU only supplies a "wake up" call to the regulator to start charging.
If you actually have the earlier type, there may be a problem with the voltage sense wire going to the ECU so the ECU is sensing no voltage on the battery and and is upping the charge.
If you have the later system, you may need a new regulator.
There is a link to the 2006 CRD circuit diagrams somewhere here...worth downloading them.

I had a problem on my 2002 CRD with the charge voltage going up to 17 volts at which time I would get a "ping" and all the instruments would go crazy and the Jeep would shut down. Turned out to be bad wiring going to the ECU....this rise in charge voltage only happened when I turned on the front wipers or the air-con....check if you have something similar.
This fault boiled my battery...sealed lead acid....so I had acid all over the place and had to buy a new battery.

May be worth your while to disconnect the battery and re-plug the connectors on the ECU and check that they are dry.

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2002 Export CRD 2.5 Sport